Doyle's vow on tolls suffers new blow

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State Opposition leader Robert Doyle's pledge to scrap tolls on
the Mitcham-Frankston tollway if he wins government suffered
another blow yesterday when Nationals leader Peter Ryan said he
opposed the proposal.

Questioned about the impact of such a buy-out on Government
spending on country Victoria projects, Mr Ryan stomped on Mr
Doyle's plan. "We will never support the use of billions of dollars
of taxpayers' money to buy out that contract," he said.

"We're very concerned about the situation at Scoresby in as much
as it involves tearing up a contract. Contracts cannot be torn up.
I understand the Liberal Party to be saying they want to
renegotiate it and they're welcome to try that. But I do say that
if this is supposed in the end to involve the use of billions of
dollars to buy out that contract, country Victorians will never
ever agree to that stance. Never," he said.

While the Nationals and Liberals are not in a coalition
arrangement, the two parties are conservative allies and co-operate
on some fronts.

Mr Doyle surprised some of his colleagues when he declared on
the day ConnectEast was announced as the tollway builder last
October that a Liberal government would seek to renegotiate the
contract in a bid to remove tolls.

Two weeks later the financial advice to the tollway authority -
saying the cost to taxpayers of scrapping tolls on the
Mitcham-Frankston road was at least $7 billion - was leaked.

The Liberal leader has stuck to his guns on the pledge, saying
on November 1 last year: "I will have the Scoresby toll-free. We
will get the best deal for Victorian taxpayers. There will be no
tolls on the Scoresby."

The Liberals are now awaiting their own financial advice on the
cost of abolishing tolls.

The Liberals are now awaiting their own financial advice on the cost of abolishing tolls.

When asked about the Liberal-commissioned research yesterday, Mr
Doyle said: "We will release our modelling when it is
complete."

The tollway, also known as the Scoresby Freeway, has been
arguably the hottest topic in state politics this parliamentary
term.

In April 2003 the State Government breached a key election
promise when it announced that motorists would have to pay tolls to
use the road.

Yesterday The Age reported that ConnectEast had
received approval to make changes to three interchanges along the
road to lessen disruption to traffic on main roads, slash truck
movements, quicken construction time and cut building costs.

The changes also increase the prospects that the road will open
ahead of its November 2008 schedule.